Flipper bowling - another 125 balls

 Another 35 mins or so working on the Flipper after yesterdays game and the reflections thereafter. 

Having done some research on the impact of elevated heart rates and the impact that has on your bowling I gave that a go today somewhat half-heartedly. I ran about a bit and got my heart rate up to 130bpm and then tried bowling and it did seem to have a negative impact as described in the previous post - wides down the leg-side and short balls. So maybe breathing drills might be the answer and focus on where you want to land the ball more, than what the batsman is going to do? 

I spoke to the captain Shyham after the game about the watch that he wears as it tracks his body functions... heart rate, sleep, recovery speeds, Vo2 max all that interesting stuff. His is a whoop which you have to pay an annual subscription for each year at £80 a go. He checks out his data and is aware that in those pressure situations his heart rate goes up and things do go awry and he was saying that he then puts breathing exercises into action to regulate and reduce his heart rate. 

I'm not overly impressed with any of the wrist strap or arm band devices, as when you dig deep and factor in that you're playing cricket and your arms are moving around shed loads, many of them don't function that well at all in that scenario, especially when bowling the straps move up and down your arm/wrist with the exaggerated movement. 

Currently I use a Coospo HC which is really good, the only downside is that for it to function you have to have your phone on your person. I've noticed that when the England cricket team play in test matches they wear chest bands - obviously monitoring their heart rates and other data, so it was obvious that there is something out there on the market that works without having any other devices. Digging further, I then found the Polar H10 heart rate sensor whcih in its marketing blurb says that it's the go to device for professional sportsmen/women.

This has internal data storage capability which tracks and stores your data whilst playing and then once you're within range of your phone - transfers the data to an app enabling you to view and analyse the data, so this looks like the way to go. So, it's definitely something I'm definitely going to consider buying this week prior to the next game. 

All that aside, the practice went OK. The final 25 balls meaning I bowled 125 in 30 mins or so I mixed leg-breaks with flippers and that went pretty well. I'll have another go tomorrow at some point and then on Tuesday in the nets, I'll only bowl Flippers again at the batters and see how it works out.